Progress in Philosophy Revisited

Two years ago I took part in panel in a conference on progress in
philosophy. (The contributions of me,
Jennifer Nagel and Dave Chalmers are still online -- I had a tech fail in recording Pettit’s contribution). My view was and is that philosophical
progress is robust – the growth is Fibonacci (think of a tree branching). Just speaking from what I’ve seen in areas of
philosophy that I am familiar with, the grown and development has been astounding
over the last thirty years.

Fibonacci growth is impressive, but is it enough? The second part of my talk was that it is not
nearly enough.

Many people are familiar with Kurzweil’s thesis about the
exponential growth in technology leading to a kind of technological
singularity. Singularity happens when you hit the elbow in
the exponential curve and the curve effectively shoot straight up (or appears
to). If that is right, then the
technological curve is pulling away from the philosophy curve very rapidly and
is about to leave it completely behind.
What that means is that our technology is going to leave our critical
thinking skills behind. You may think
that is already happening, and I agree: I’m just saying the problem is about to
get much worse.

It doesn’t have to get worse. The only reason that technology grows
exponentially is that we keep feeding it resources. The only reason philosophy doesn’t is that we
starve it for resources (we don’t have enough bodies to throw at philosophical
problems). I say we need to seriously
think about redistributing resources away from technological development and
into philosophy, and allow philosophy departments to grow new programs that
focus on new technologies and their development. Why would anyone do this? Well, someone needs to make vivid what can go
wrong if we don’t. One idea is that if
we don’t understand technology we become alienated from it – a view that I floated
yesterday.

So here are some questions for discussion. Is philosophy making the kind of progress I
believe it is? Is technology pulling
away from us as Kurzweil believes it is?
Is this a problem? Can we fix
it? If so, how?

Comments

Progress in Philosophy Revisited

Two years ago I took part in panel in a conference on progress in
philosophy. (The contributions of me,
Jennifer Nagel and Dave Chalmers are still online -- I had a tech fail in recording Pettit’s contribution). My view was and is that philosophical
progress is robust – the growth is Fibonacci (think of a tree branching). Just speaking from what I’ve seen in areas of
philosophy that I am familiar with, the grown and development has been astounding
over the last thirty years.

Fibonacci growth is impressive, but is it enough? The second part of my talk was that it is not
nearly enough.

Many people are familiar with Kurzweil’s thesis about the
exponential growth in technology leading to a kind of technological
singularity. Singularity happens when you hit the elbow in
the exponential curve and the curve effectively shoot straight up (or appears
to). If that is right, then the
technological curve is pulling away from the philosophy curve very rapidly and
is about to leave it completely behind.
What that means is that our technology is going to leave our critical
thinking skills behind. You may think
that is already happening, and I agree: I’m just saying the problem is about to
get much worse.

It doesn’t have to get worse. The only reason that technology grows
exponentially is that we keep feeding it resources. The only reason philosophy doesn’t is that we
starve it for resources (we don’t have enough bodies to throw at philosophical
problems). I say we need to seriously
think about redistributing resources away from technological development and
into philosophy, and allow philosophy departments to grow new programs that
focus on new technologies and their development. Why would anyone do this? Well, someone needs to make vivid what can go
wrong if we don’t. One idea is that if
we don’t understand technology we become alienated from it – a view that I floated
yesterday.

So here are some questions for discussion. Is philosophy making the kind of progress I
believe it is? Is technology pulling
away from us as Kurzweil believes it is?
Is this a problem? Can we fix
it? If so, how?